


Forming

by GermsBurn



Series: We Must Bleed [3]
Category: The Lost Boys (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood Drinking, Bloodlust, Canon-Typical Violence, HIV/AIDS Crisis, Homophobic Language, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Queer Character, Queer Themes, Recreational Drug Use, Vampire Turning, gay culture, gay history
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-01
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:01:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28487250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GermsBurn/pseuds/GermsBurn
Summary: Marko isn’t so sure he wants Michael to take that first drink.
Relationships: David/Michael Emerson (Lost Boys), Marko/Paul (Lost Boys)
Series: We Must Bleed [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2013589
Comments: 7
Kudos: 33





	Forming

**Author's Note:**

> One-shot from Marko’s perspective of Michael’s first night with the boys in “What we do is secret” (chapter 1). This character study is a pretty deep cut of my head canon of Marko. I tried to be sparing in how I wove his backstory into “What we do is secret,” and here I just fill in all the subtext with the equivalent of a vampiric mini-Bildungsroman written in overwrought, flashing neon letters…but, in my defense, it was fun. 
> 
> Not sure if this can be read as a stand alone...probably not. As for any discrepancies between the events depicted in chapter 1 of “What we do is secret” and those presented below, which cover roughly the same ground, let’s just say that Michael was too out of it to be a reliable narrator. 
> 
> Anyway, Happy New Years. 2021 can't possibly be worse than 2020, right? In any event, finding the time and inspiration to try my hand at fic for the first time was a small silver lining of this horrible year. As always, comments and kudos are much appreciated!

David hadn’t taken his eyes off of Michael all night. Marko couldn’t blame him; the teenager was definitely cute. He was like a living, breathing version of that dinky little plastic statuette of Michelangelo’s _David_ that Fred used to keep in his bathroom, balanced precariously on the shelf near the sink. Those chiseled features, that mound of curls. He wondered if Michael looked as impressive naked, with his legs wide and weight balanced just so. _Contrapposto,_ his brain supplied, a faint memory from the community college art history survey he had been taking before he was forced to drop out of school altogether. Fred. Shit. Fred’s house had been stuffed with all kinds of campy things, it had been like a museum dedicated to outdated icons of male beauty and bad taste. The older man had tried to explain “camp” to him once at a dinner party with his nearest and dearest, a clutch of old-school queens who had been friends since the days before Gay Lib. They found Marko adorable and never tired of trying to educate him in the quirks and obsessions that they shared. Sometimes, when he was bored, he made a game out of counting all the _Davids_ he could find in Fred’s house. It was like a treasure hunt: there was one, he remembered, with garish purple eyeshadow and bright pink lips on a fridge magnet, another on the calendar in the office, dressed up like a miniature leather daddy. Fred even had an oversized bath towel decorated with the famed Renaissance sculpture: Marko’s favorite to borrow whenever he stayed over. Fred used to let him crash at his place when the couches of his friends and lovers dried up and it was too cold out on the streets, when he didn’t feel like going home with some guy from the bars just to have somewhere to sleep. Fred had been the one to convince him to sit for his GED and then to apply to school in the first place, had even let him use his address for the paperwork. The older man had been like a father to him, although he definitely told too many off-color jokes and was too devoted to opera to be anything like his real father. The bastard. He’d moved in for a while, later on, to help take care of Fred after he got sick. He had looked so different towards the end, frail, almost like a skeleton in that loud house gone quiet.

Marko wondered, sometimes, what he would have done if he had been turned before Fred died. Paul had killed everyone from his former life that he could get his hands on. He had, if David’s stories were to be believed, gloried in coming up with more and more sadistic, elaborate ways to do it. And when his bloody crusade ended, he had finally been free. Paul had buried and mourned his dead, in his own horrible way. The virus had pretty much done the job for Marko; there hadn’t been anybody _left,_ by the time he had been turned. A haze of melancholia curled around the heart that rested, inert, in the cavity of his chest: unresolved, unresolvable. All that had been left for him was his old man. Quick work, that. Hadn’t stopped him from having his fun though; hadn’t really satisfied him either. After that night, he had begun a bloodthirsty, indiscriminate campaign of revenge against humanity in general that had yet to stop or even slow down.

“ _Cool it on the theatrics, bud,_ ” Paul whispered into his mind, not unkindly. Paul’s hand had crept over to press at the small of his back, drawing him into the present moment again. Paul always seemed to know. The gesture was hidden, too subtle for Michael to notice. To human eyes, anyway, the lobby of the sunken hotel was dark and sepulchral; the fires roaring away in the oil drums did little to truly illuminate the subterranean space, instead casting an array of bewildering, sinister shadows across its yawning stone walls. Marko leaned into the touch, wishing that the boy wasn’t there, that they didn’t have to be on their best behavior. Could drop all these ridiculous pretenses. Wished that Paul would fuck him until he couldn’t remember his own name. Or maybe just pester and poke at him until he couldn’t imagine a time when his life hadn’t been so simple, so fun. He felt suffocated all of a sudden. He wanted to tear off his weak, soft human mask. His face felt wrong, too smooth and flat, like it had been ironed out. His mouth felt cavernously empty, he could taste the air where his fangs should be. Paul traced a claw soothingly at the band of exposed flesh between his jeans and his cropped shirt, stopping just short of drawing blood. Marko shivered. He wanted to rip off the black fishnet top that Paul was wearing underneath that absurd tuxedo jacket of his, gouge and scrape up his pale skin until it ran red. Little diamonds of flesh glittered across his chest, taunting him.

He didn’t actually mind Paul’s human face that much. Had always found it beautiful, the way his lips curved, pinkly, against the shadow of stubble that roughened his skin. His blue eyes were piercing, almost too small for his face. Sometimes he let Marko rim them in eyeliner, which gave them a little more definition. Paul was conventionally handsome, but he had this gawky awkwardness to him that Marko had immediately found appealing. His features were just a little too delicate to be completely masculine, an incongruity that fascinated the younger vampire endlessly. But it was nothing compared to Paul’s true face: now that was spectacular. Preferably when coated in blood, eyes feral, grin ecstatic. All of those soft little contradictions resolved into something unalloyed, flawless. He could never get enough of the way Paul’s eyes gleamed, framed by the shadows and sharpened ridges that curved around them, defining them absolutely. The way his elegant lips stretched, monstrously, to accommodate sharp incisors. The way his lion’s mane of hair burned like a halo around his face. It was breathtaking. Far beyond the pale human categories of male and female. To his prey, he looked blunted, reduced to a single, terrifying note. To his brother, he was everything: his worst fear, his best fantasy. Paul’s fingers, human again, danced up his spine, lifting off. They shouldn’t scare Michael away, had to be “good.” Marko growled in frustration, earning him a sharp look from David.

David was still having what amounted to a staring contest with his new pet. Had been staring at him since the boy threw that ill-advised punch at the bluff, even before that maybe. But Michael had sealed his fate when he’d confronted the vampire, angrily spitting fire, “Just you.” That wasn’t really how it worked: they were all a package deal. And too bad for Michael, David loved a challenge. Now he wanted to test that nerve, break it, mold it into something new, something more dangerous…something more fun. Marko could sense David’s obsession growing steadily as they felt out the boy under the cover of this farce of a shindig. David’s face remained as controlled, as distant as ever, but the intensity that burned underneath was white hot. David was completely focused on Michael, scrutinizing his every move. Assaying his worth, separating the gold from the dross. The boy’s rabbit heart pounded, dumbly, under the weight of David’s barely hidden attentions. Marko would be jealous, but there was always more than enough to go around in the end and they had all the time in the world. The deafening rhythm echoing out from Michael’s chest, though, was making it hard to keep up the façade of humanity that this little overture required. He wanted to make the boy’s heart race, make it stutter, _make it stop._ He started to growl again, without meaning to, seized suddenly by the hunger that had been his constant companion for the past two years.

“Marko,” David called out, abruptly, “food!” Eyeing the younger vampire, David added privately, “ _Chinese. And get something for yourself before you come back. He’s off limits tonight and I need you to keep a lid on it._ ” David smiled, a wicked look in his eyes, “ _For now anyway._ ” David was definitely more fun than Max had been, he’d give him that.

“ _Okay, ‘daddy!’”_ Marko smirked, earning another, even sharper look for that one. Shrugging it off, he dipped his hand into the fountain, letting the treasure clink and jangle as he fished out a nice, fat wallet. He weighed it in his hands, tossing it back and forth a few times. Seemed like enough, not that it really mattered. He’d always been a natural at reading people, and their little mind games had come easily enough.

As he made his way outside, he could hear David gloat, “That’s what I love about this place. You ask, and then you get.” Marko rolled his eyes, wondering if David’s bluster was impressing the boy. Probably. 

__

He felt much better by the time he got back to the hotel. The blood of his kill had warmed him right up, rounded off all the sharp edges. His ghosts were blurry again, too remote to haunt. It had been a bit of a shame to have to be so damn _neat_ about it, but that couldn’t be helped. Didn’t want to piss David off more than he already had by coming home covered in blood and gore. Anyway, he was going to spend the night getting fucked up, maybe even have some real fun. Paul was already passing a joint around, a little appetizer for what was to come. “Feeding time!” Marko called out, jumping down with a flourish. He couldn’t help but turn the screw, letting his voice modulate up a pitch or two higher, “Come and get it, boys!” 

“Chinese, good choice,” David said, pointedly ignoring the provocation.

He tossed the cartons of take-out around and then settled down next to Dwayne and Paul.

“ _This is gonna be good._ ” A mischievous, excited note colored Paul’s thought.

“ _Yeah?”_ He asked, “ _what’s the plan?_ ”

“ _See how strong his stomach is,_ ” Paul grinned, “ _if he’s not too squeamish, get him to take a drink._ ”

Marko’s eyebrows shot up, “ _That was fast._ ” After Max was killed, David had easily assumed the position of head vampire, a role that he had long fulfilled less officially as far as the rest of the boys were concerned. But this was the first time he had broached the idea of adding someone to their little pack. Marko wasn’t sure what he thought about it, but it wasn’t really up to him in the end.

“ _Need some extra muscle, probably,_ ” Paul speculated, “ _in case anyone gets any ideas, tries to move in._ ”

“ _David thinks that he’s a killer,”_ Dwayne narrowed his eyes a little, clearly not sharing their leader’s opinion. “ _We can always eat him if he’s wrong._ ”

“ _David thinks he’s got a killer ass, more like it,_ ” Marko peered thoughtfully at the guy, earning him another glare. “ _He’s not wrong there,_ ” he added with a lascivious smile, grinning wider still as David’s glare turned wolfish, hungry. 

Paul smiled back, teeth bared, “ _Should be fun either way, brothers._ ”

The three of them watched as David messed with Michael’s head, laughing as required. They poked at their food, putting on a bit of a show of eating, but mostly stuck to the joint that had materialized courtesy of Paul’s never-ending stash. Marko leaned, subtly, against Dwayne, melting into the familiar solace of the older vampire’s bare, muscled chest and focused on getting a decent high going. It wasn’t always easy to manage with their preternatural constitution, but he was nothing if not motivated. His pigeons, he noticed after a while, were staying tucked away in the rafters, wary of their guest. A few wasted cartons of Chinese food later, Michael was still with them although he didn’t look happy.

“ _Doesn’t scare too easily,_ ” Paul observed, “ _I’ll give him that._ ”

Dwayne shrugged, unimpressed. He petulantly snatched the joint from Paul’s hand and took a long hit. Marko giggled at the novelty of feeling the dark-haired vampire’s chest expand with breath beneath him.

David beckoned Marko over and Dwayne, the traitor, gave him a little shove of encouragement. Sighing, he made his way towards the two boys, leaning in as David pretended to whisper in his ear. “ _Grab the bottle, I think it’s time he takes a drink._ ”

They kept the blood hidden in plain sight next to a bunch of empty wine bottles stuck with multicolored candles dripping wax. The old thing was hideous, a holdover from some time long before the Enlightenment. Hammered metal with missing gemstones. It looked gaudy as hell but it was about as real as they came, a genuine antique. Practically an antiquity. He was of the firm opinion that they should update it now that Max was dead, but David was weirdly sentimental about the thing. They had recently refilled it with a mixture of David’s blood and a nice bold California old vine Zinfandel, toasting their loyalty to their new leader. The vintage had been Paul’s choice: he was something of a connoisseur, even if he was usually too high to put up a stink about it. Or to form complete sentences. It had been fun, though, flying out to wine country to pick something out. And the vintner had tasted pretty good too, as far as Marko’s less-refined palate was concerned. 

He sauntered back over to David, bottle in hand, studying Michael a little more carefully now. He was definitely cute and would probably be a decent fuck, if they could cure him of some of his inhibitions. Marko had always been able to smell a repressed homo from a mile away, and the kid stunk in the best possible way. Michael just needed to get down on his knees, get his mouth around a cock, and get over himself. And wouldn’t that be a sight. He tried to skim the boy’s mind, but he was still too wary, too guarded to give much away. Rebuffed, Marko was surprised to feel an unfamiliar pang of something like empathy. Being a vampire was great fun, but he still felt a faint sense of loss sometimes, a trace of grief when faced with his newfound lack of a sexual orientation. Old habits die hard, though, and he didn’t really see why he should have to let go of that particular affectation. It was, in any case, a non-issue: why bother playing with his food, when he had his pack? The poor kid, though, barely understood what he was, let alone what he was on the verge of becoming. Marko wondered for a split second if he should try and warn him, but shook it off and made his way back to the couch, where Paul and Dwayne were watching the scene with matching darkly amused expressions. He flopped down next to his brothers and tried not to look too frightening.

Michael’s eyes were darting around the room, as he attempted to play it cool despite his evident disorientation and unease. The lair was overwhelming: everywhere you looked something glittered or gathered dust. It had been about eighty years since David and Dwayne first claimed the place, and stuff tended to pile up. Paul, in particular, had a surprising knack for building things and making little repairs, as well as the obsessive appetite of a true collector. His cache of tapes and records already rivaled the centuries worth of books that Dwayne had secreted away. Marko made up for lost time, gilding their little nest with whatever odds and ends he could get his hands on. Despite the endless distractions that littered the boy’s field of vision, as soon as David uncapped the bottle and brought it to his lips, Michael’s eyes were glued to him. David let his eyelids flutter closed, giving him permission to stare, and made a show of savoring the “wine.” It was borderline pornographic, the way that he squeezed his eyes shut with pleasure and shuddered, licking his lips, before passing the bottle over to their guest. “Drink some of this Michael,” he whispered, his voice husky, the intensity of his gaze cranked up a few extra notches, “be one of us.”

Marko bit back a laugh, “ _That’s laying it on a bit thick, isn’t it?_ ”

Dwayne narrowed his eyes in agreement, but Paul’s attention was rapt. “ _Dunno,_ ” he said in that laid back way of his, “ _David usually knows what he’s doing._ ”

He felt apprehensive all of a sudden, jealously protective of their pack. Who the fuck was this guy? He couldn’t help but be offended that David seemed ready to welcome him into the fold with no preamble. The human couldn’t even begin to understand the gift he was being offered. Didn’t deserve it. His hunger started to rise up again and the human was looking mouth-watering in more ways than one; apparently his snack earlier hadn’t been nearly enough to satiate. Never really was.

Dwayne gave him a knowing look. “ _This doesn’t have to mean anything yet. Once he drinks, it will probably just make it a little easier for you to be around him. You might even find it exciting. The pull of the blood is strong,_ ” he paused, “ _but he will still be fundamentally human. Especially since he has no idea what’s going on. I don’t think that he is going to want this, not at first anyway. Not like when you joined us, brother._ ” He gazed at Marko with his usual fondness.

Paul took advantage of Michael’s momentary state of distraction to wrap his arm around the younger vampire, leaning in intimately. His lips ghosted over Marko’s neck, the gesture hidden underneath his blonde nimbus of hair.

__

They hadn’t bothered with all the smoke and mirrors when they initiated him. Paul and Dwayne had found Marko shortly after Fred died, after the man’s hateful family had kicked him back out onto the street, greedily impatient to sell the house. They’d just tossed out all of Fred’s stuff, a lifetime of treasures that the idiots didn’t even begin to know how to appreciate. But it wasn’t as if Marko had anywhere to keep whatever he might have managed to salvage from the trash. He stopped going to activist meetings after that, it was too depressing, felt pointless. He spent his days contemplating arson and his nights drinking, taking whatever drugs he could get his hands on. He knew that Fred, that his friends would have tried to stop him, convince him to be _responsible,_ to take care of himself; too bad they were all dead. When he met Paul and Dwayne, he’d been about two weeks into a bender that his body really couldn’t handle, that he wasn’t going to be able to come back from. It hadn’t helped that he’d started to make a suicidal game of picking fights, trying to get a rise out of whatever assholes he could find by playing up his most effeminate mannerisms or making an ill-advised pass for the thrill of a couple of punches. When he cruised Paul that night, the blood caked on his shirt hadn’t been his own. The two vampires followed him down an alley and he would have welcomed death. Instead, death invited him back to its place by the beach.

David read Marko like an open book the second Paul and Dwayne brought him back to the lair. He hadn’t minced words, had made him the offer right then and there. Marko had been a little frightened, once he understood what they were, what they wanted him to become. But given the alternative? His fear curdled, with lightning speed, into nervousness, into anticipation, and finally into excitement. That had pleased David. He still remembered, with a shiver of pride, the look of respect, of understanding that had crossed the vampire’s face when he’d reached for the bottle of Max’s blood, knowing full well what was in it. The look had been mixed with something else, though, something haunted and impossible to name. David had done his best to keep his expression blank, but the ineffable emotion swelled behind his eyes. Marko had fearlessly, recklessly met David's gaze, thinking that he understood what was about to happen. He hadn’t understood, not really, but once the blood hit his lips it was too late for that, or anything else, to matter anymore.

It had been torture, waiting to make his first kill. Once he felt the first pulse of connection to the pack, _his pack,_ he had wanted to rip out, destroy everything that stood between them. Wanted to slough off all that remained of his humanity, watch it circle the drain. And when that first pang of hunger jolted through his system? Well, Marko had, for better or worse, never been one to push down or try to outrun his desires. But David had insisted that he wait. Something about the time it took for the body to adjust. Promised that it would make the change less painful, easier. David wouldn’t explain more than that and his eyes became guarded, even more remote than usual, when pressed. Marko sometimes wondered if he hadn’t been given that luxury. David had been right, of course; he always was. It had been worth it to let the blood work through his system slowly, healing all the little cuts and bruises that marred his flesh, curing the ailments that ran deeper still; by the end, he had been perfect, unblemished and hale, and there hadn’t been much further left to go.

He waited out those long, excruciatingly lonely days and nights holed up in the hotel with the boys that were going to become his brothers. He marveled as his body began to change, fascinated that this was what death felt like. After all the years he had spent fearing it, running from it, knowing that he was on a collision course with it. Spent hours listening to the slowing beat of his pulse, finger on his wrist, waiting for it to finally stop. Waiting for the sun to set, for the others to wake up and rejoin him. He hated how the warmth of his flesh contrasted with the coolness of Paul’s skin. Each night he would run his fingers over the other boy’s body, twine their hands together, press his cheek against his deathly silent chest. Each night the difference between their temperatures narrowed a little; he wished they would finally match. He resented the silence that echoed mercilessly in his head when David, Dwayne, and Paul looked at one another in their inscrutable way. Sometimes Paul took pity on him, pressed a simple word or idea into his mind, an intimation of what he was missing out on. He stared endlessly at Dwayne, mesmerized by the revulsion he still felt, knew he _should_ feel, at the vampire’s monstrous features. It excited him. He thought back to those late nights in the quiet, hostile darkness of his father’s house, to the delicious twist of shame and fear that had wracked his body when he had finally worked up the nerve to press inside himself, when he had brushed against that secret, forbidden spot buried deep within. He had run towards the realization that he might _be_ that shameful and fearsome thing, had been excited to try it on for size, see how it fit. He’d felt a kind of satisfaction in finally knowing for sure _what_ he was, knowing that he was what parents warned their children about. He had always been one of the things that went bump in the night. Dwayne humored the halfling’s fascination, let Marko touch the unnatural hardness of his skin, trace the pronounced angles and curves of his bones, cut himself on the sharpness of his claws. Dwayne even spoke to him aloud sometimes, murmuring reassurances as the nights stretched out, whispering about what was happening to him, what it was going to be like from now on.

It wasn’t until the third night, when the other boys came back from a hunt scented with blood, that he finally changed to match them: fangs ripped through gums, claws tore through fingertips, brown eyes burned amber, lava coursed through his insides, scalding hot, searing him irreparably. It had hurt like hell, but he had felt different, powerful for a few perfect moments. He was devastated when it melted away, leaving him all too human again. Once the hunger began to really fester, he could at least drop his fangs easily enough, and the others let him taste their blood, whetting his appetite, forging the chains that linked them all together. But it was like taking ecstasy: the brief moments of feeding burned so brightly that the time between them stretched out endlessly, grayer and harder to endure than before.

In the secret reaches of his still-beating heart, Marko feared that they might tire of him, might decide to just eat him before he could join them, maybe they never even intended to turn him at all. Forever was, he imagined, a long time. When they brought him to the train tracks, he hadn’t hesitated, hadn’t even looked down to discover them hanging onto the trestle. He had just jumped, had hovered in the air for a few glorious moments, and then had been caught by David when he began to plummet back towards the earth. Held tightly by the vampire, his life resting completely in David’s hands, Marko felt safe, felt free for the first time in as long as he could remember.

He had, in the end, felt a pang of guilt as he moved in to make his first kill. That was the last time that he ever felt guilty again.

__

The three vampires watched avidly from their perch on the couch as Michael examined the bottle, twisting it around in the firelight as if the illumination could make it give up its dark secrets.

Paul started to chant the boy’s name silently, lending his voice to David’s iron-clad will. “ _Michael, Michael._ ” Marko felt himself drawn into the chant, even Dwayne joined the chorus. They urged Michael on, trying to push him past his hesitation, past the doubt that was coloring his thoughts still. If this was what David wanted, then they stood with him. 

Finally, the boy tipped the bottle back. As soon as the blood hit his tongue, they all felt something small but essential change in the fiber of Michael’s very being, sensed the first embers of a connection begin to glow. David let out a deep “Bravo,” clapping his hands together so loudly that the sound echoed off the stone walls, sending the flock of pigeons fluttering madly up in the rafters. Marko couldn’t help but notice something hard in David’s voice, something almost pained flash across his blue eyes. But whatever it was soon faded as they all joined in, celebrating Michael’s first tentative step into their brotherhood.

Michael's eyelashes fluttered closed as he drank. When his eyes opened again, they were barely different. But they _were_ different. Half-lidded, laced with something inchoate, something predatory just starting to form. He had been human just a few seconds ago, and now he was something else. Dwayne had been right: it was far less tempting to eat him now that his blood smelled a little more like pack. Now that his heart was beating just a fraction slower. Of course, Dwayne was still sulking, in his reserved way, his animosity and impatience towards all that remained human in the boy restrained only by his steadfast loyalty to their leader. David plied Michael with more blood, satisfying the craving that was forming at the center of his very being, feeding the fire, making it grow until it would burn away everything else that he had once been. Paul slid an old Doors tape into his boombox and got started rolling another joint.

Marko tried, with some bitterness, to imagine what it would have been like to give up his humanity if he had felt like he’d had anything to lose, if he had felt any loyalty to the human race at all. What a joke. But Michael’s obliviousness, his innocence was a bit of a thrill in its own right. The boy had no idea what was happening to him, how he was changing, how he’d already changed with that first taste. He was beautiful like this, intoxicated and unaware of the precipice upon which he stood. It was so like and unlike his own transformation. Marko had gone in with his eyes wide open, but in the end he had been just as blind as this halfling was.

The walls that Michael had been barricading himself behind all night crumbled as the blood wore down his defenses, opened him up to the pack. His mind was a mess of repression and scarcely understood desires. “ _Oh wow,_ ” Marko giggled breathlessly, sorting through the boy’s newly-vivid thoughts, “ _I think our new friend has a real thing for Davey._ ” He grinned at Paul, absconding with the fresh joint as he got up to move a little closer to the halfling. He threw himself down next to him, tossing his legs over the arm of the couch with a convincing imitation of casualness. He lit up and passed the joint to Michael, accidentally letting their hands brush together. Luckily he was already too far gone to notice the deathly chill of his skin.

Marko regarded Michael almost tenderly as he took a deep, slow pull. “Doing okay, Mikey?”

Michael blushed a little at the easy familiarity of Marko’s words, warm with blood and wine. He passed the joint back, “Stronger than I’m used to, I guess.” The newly-made halfling tried to shrug it off, made a valiant but doomed effort to play it cool, keep his cards close to his chest.

“Our Paulie always has the best stuff,” he boasted, winking back towards Paul, “if you’re gonna hang with us, you’ll get used to it.”

Michael laughed in agreement, tilting his head back to stare at the mass of shiny, metal scraps suspended above them from a snarled network of string and wire. The baubles hanging from the ceiling glinted wildly, reflecting the fires that roared nearby, casting shards of light around them. The effect was hypnotizing.

Marko adjusted himself with a lazy smile, moving a little closer in and taking another hit. He watched the lights twinkle and flash, little ersatz disco balls synced to some long-forgotten song, reflecting nothing of the dancers. He let himself get lost in the tangle of emotions that Michael was unwittingly broadcasting. The halfling’s anxiety was only slightly dampened by the blood that was flooding his system, the smoke that was starting to cloud his thoughts. He was nervously tallying up his inventory of stolen glances, pitilessly censuring himself for succumbing to the gravitational pull of David’s lips, the tractor beam of his eyes. Like he had stood a chance. If he only knew what David actually had on his mind right now. The poor boy couldn’t even imagine half of the things the older vampire wanted to do to him. Couldn’t fathom how good, how easy, how _fun_ it could be between all of them once he gave in, joined them forever. 

“Would you like that?” Marko pressed, his voice inexplicably serious. 

Michael wrenched his attention away from the constellation of glittering junk above them and tried to focus on the vampire’s face. “Like what?”

He grinned, dodging the question, and took another pull from the joint. “How are you feeling?” He peered at him inquisitively, “Hungry? Something you want?”

“ _Marko,_ ” David narrowed his eyes in warning.

“ _What? Not like he’s gonna remember much after hitting Paulie’s stash,_ ” Marko giggled, “ _anyway, he’s only got one thing on his mind right now._ ”

David ignored him, but his expression had turned decidedly smug.

Grinning even wider, Marko twisted around and reached for the handle of whisky that he had stowed behind the couch. “You’ll love it, promise,” he raised the bottle to Michael, holding the boy’s gaze with a look that was at once merciless and almost sympathetic, “Party all night!” He downed a fiery gulp without so much as a shudder and then turned to his brothers, “Live forever!” Paul and Dwayne’s faces shone out in the darkened room as he tipped the bottle back again, letting the amber liquid roll around in his mouth. He leaned in close, “We’re gonna have so much fun, Mikey. More fun than you ever thought possible. Whatever you want,” his eyes slid closed for a moment, his words slurring, “it’ll be awesome.”

As the night wore on, he clowned around trying to make Michael comfortable, scrunching up his flimsy human face, pouting, sticking out his tongue. Sensing the boy’s nervousness as Paul gathered the supplies to pierce his ear, he pressed the jeweled bottle back into his hands, urging him to take another drink. “ _Liquid courage, brother,”_ he thought, pointlessly, knowing the halfling couldn’t hear him yet. He watched with satisfaction as Michael tipped it back and closed his eyes, losing himself, again, in the blood. Now that the blood was really pumping through Michael’s veins, he felt magnetized, seized by the desire to wring out all the remnants of humanity still diluting its power. Wanted to fill him up with it, bring him closer to them. He wondered how his brothers had stood it, during those long nights after he’d drunk but before he’d been allowed to make his kill. Wondered how David could stand it now, the unrelenting pull of his own blood this time, running through the halfling’s veins. Michael’s mind was echoing louder and louder in his head now; he could feel his emotions shining out, little tendrils of connection subconsciously seeking them out. He wanted to pull at them, reel him in, bind him to them. They itched, all those outworn, meaningless feelings and attachments, all that fear and guilt and shame, still clinging to the boy, getting in the way. He wanted to see everything that remained human in him defiled, ruined. Wanted to find that deep, aberrant vein that already ran through him and bring it to the surface, dilate it until it was all that was left. Until he couldn’t pretend that he was any different. It would be so satisfying to feel him change, truly become one of them. All these tedious hang-ups would drift away like cobwebs. He could feel it deep in his bones: Michael would be a natural at the little “games” he liked to play, might really take to it. Max had always frowned at mass slaughter, the uptight prick, but David was usually happy to humor Marko, to encourage him, to have the boys lend him a hand with his designs. He couldn’t wait to have Michael by his side amidst the carnage, grinning inhumanly, drenched in blood.

Marko pressed into the boy’s mind, willing him to drink more, to keep drinking. Paul and Dwayne had dropped their playacting, were also totally focused on Michael. The boy’s brow creased in confusion, almost as if he could sense their attention, as the blood flowed down his eager throat.

It was David, in the end, who drove the needle through Michael’s ear, drawing a few scant drops of blood. The smell sent paroxysms of pleasure through the other vampires. They were drawn in instantly, automatically by the fleeting but powerful shadow of the connection that would one day bind Michael to them completely. Even Dwayne momentarily overcame his distaste for the halfling in his current state, moved by the blood to embrace him. With excited shouts they crowded around him, cheering and laughing. Marko watched as David returned to his chair, content to let his pack play with the boy who was in the process of becoming their brother. David returned his gaze steadily, heartlessly, an enigmatic smile playing at his lips.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Comments always very welcome :)


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